Note 291 — Chapter XXV
Reading edition
Among Orientals the planets Jupiter and Venus were worshipped as the Larger and the Lesser Luck. They were worshipped as Merodach and Istar among the Babylonians. Merodach was worshipped for prosperity (cf. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 460, 476, 488). It may be Merodach and Istar, to whom are here given the name Gad, or Luck (cf. Genesis xxii. 11, and the name Baal Gad in the Lebanon valley) and Meni, or Fate, Fortune (cf. Arabic al-manijjat, fate; Wellhausen, Skizzen, iii., 22 ff., 189). There was in the Babylonian Pantheon a "Manu the Great who presided over fate" (Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, etc., p. 120). Instances of idolatrous feasts will be found in Sayce, op. cit., p. 539; cf. 1 Cor. x. 21, Ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils. See what is said in p. 62 of this volume about the connection of idolatry and commerce.